Continuing my journey in discovering childhood through a 23 years olds eyes, I headed back to school in October and as I learnt from Julie Andrews and the many repeats of The Sound of Music, starting at the beginning is a very good place to start. Entonces Bienvenido a Elementary 1! (So Welcome to Elementary 1).
I would love to be able to say that I actually got to go back to Elementary 1 and that the best way to learn a language is to go to the zoo, colour and watch children’s films. Unfortunately, unless primary school has changed dramatically since I left, it is not true and really all the intense studying, seminars and brainwork I missed in university has caught up with me. I have lessons Monday-Friday, 8.30am-12.30pm and plenty of homework and further study. Basically, my days are full of studying and not much else!
My first lesson, I vividly remember sitting down, my teacher starting to spout off in Spanish at me and thinking how am I am going learn a language when I don’t understand a thing anyone is saying. Thankfully all those people that told me it is the best way to learn a language are correct! Gold stars for you guys.
My lessons are one to one with mi maestra (my teacher), Albertina, and I may just let the inner nerd within me out by saying this but I actually really enjoy my lessons. Alongside all the Spanish I am hopefully learning, I am relearning the joy and excitement of learning. In a geeky way, I love to flip through the dictionary, or mi libro favorito(my favourite book) as it is affectionately known by me, Ingrid and Albertina. The boost and moment of pride when I understand what someone is saying to me or use the correct conjunction is pretty special. And as I said in my last post, Albertina and I have a lot of laughs and banter in our lessons, sometimes the time just flies by.
Other times the time certainly does not fly by. Being taught one to one is great until you brain decides to disappear or you haven’t quite put in as much effort into memorising all about the animals in Spanish as you should have. At those points I wish for a class that I can hide behind, so I can half listen and half stare out the window. Thankfully these are rare moments and even in my lack of a good memory and preparation, God still shows up and pulls me through and from somewhere within my brain a little Spanish appears.
Now onto the real fun of Elementary 1 though. Role on the class trip #1. We have only had one class trip but I am living in hope that there will be more! To the zoo we go.
You would be forgiven for asking how a trip to the zoo is helping me learning Spanish. I asked, and am still asking, the same question but it got us out of the classroom and into the sun so I was happy and not going to voice my opinions.
I am not sure whether my teacher thinks I love animals or that this is just a good way to learn Spanish and improve my memory but each day I have three animals to learn about and memorize all in Spanish. This does mean somewhere in my brain there are facts about currently 30 different animals floating around my brain, and my teacher duly questioned me on all the animals I have learnt about. Praise be to God I could remember a fact about each animal!
Following along the animal theme, I really think my teacher thinks I love animals, I spent a lesson drawing and colouring sea animals for a game my teacher was making to help me learn irregular verbs. Remember when the big sheets of paper and the colouring pens came out in class? Poster making time! Equalling in not much learnt just lots of drawing and colouring. That was my lesson. It didn’t help me with my irregular verbs but my inner child was satisfied and I learnt that pulpo is octopus in Spanish.
My stomach was also satisfied last week we got to make tortillas and eat them while watching Rio in Spanish. Seriously, I do enjoy the life of a Spanish student!
For all you animal lovers out there, you will be pleased to know the animals in the zoo had plenty of space to roam around in and be happy in! No animals have been harmed in my learning of Spanish!
Life in Guatemala 